


In The Beginning

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Raphael & Santfe [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Angels, Complicated Relationships, Crowley As Raphael (Good Omens), Demon Aziraphale (Good Omens), Demons, Flirting, Manipulation, Power Dynamics, Pre-Relationship, Roleswap, canon fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 13:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19199551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: In the beginning, there was an angel, and a demon...





	In The Beginning

Raphael, one of the four remaining central Archangels – they were down one, since the war – felt… nervous. There was no reason to be nervous. It had been a lovely day so far, and a lovely existence all around; the Garden of Eden was flourishing, and Adam and Eve seemed very happily set in their places; there were a great many animals and plants, and—

He liked plants. He _really_ liked plants.

He hadn’t expected to, as much as he did, but he really did: he liked to reach out to them and see their beautiful, green leaves, and all the fruit they bore, and oh, the flowers, the flowers! How beautiful they were…

But being in amongst the plants only soothed the nervousness a little bit.

He didn’t know why he felt anxious. He often did, that was all.

And Upstairs, as of recent, she was being… She was _smiling_ more. It was never a good thing, when she smiled that much, and she was answering even fewer questions than usual. He hated it when she wouldn’t answer questions, and he hated how the questions just seemed to bloom up in his head, the way they flourished and blossomed and then died and just… Seemed to bud even _more_ questions.

“And how— How fare ye, er, great angel, Raphael?”

Raphael pressed his lips together to keep from bursting out laughing as he looked at the Principality on the Eastern Gate. She had been hastily stuffed into her vessel, so it seemed, and her eyes shone with golden light as she looked up at Raphael.

“We can lose all that,” he said. “How are you doing, Daniel?”

“Er,” she said, leaning from one foot onto the other. “Well, there’s— There’s some _trouble_ , that’s all. There’s this— There’s this demon, just, just hanging around.”

“Hanging around?” Raphael repeated. “Well,” he murmured, uncomfortable with the words even as he said them, “Uriel’s taught you what to do with them, right? Just a quick one-two and snickersnack with the, um, the sword.”

“Snickersnack, Raphael?”

“Or something like it.”

“It’s just— He didn’t strike me as very susceptible to snickersnacking, or even snickering and snackering in separation.”

“Oh. That is a problem. When did you see him last?”

“He’s here now,” Daniel said, and pointed.

\--

The demon Sanfte sat in the dust and sand, some ways away from the great _wall_ about Eden. It was, he felt, a dreadfully funny thing to put about a garden, not that he’d ever known a garden before, except for the one that had been up in Heaven. There was something about a garden, he felt, that ought grow _outward_ , and a wall seemed rather to get in the way.

And there was the general inconvenience of the thing. The wall wasn’t something he wanted to have any go at climbing, and flying over the top had gotten some dashed angry angels fussing over him, with their flaming arrows and their angry little words.

 _Bless_ them.

No sense of narrative convenience, but that was angels for you.

But then, this was… You know, it wasn’t his business to worry about that sort of thing. Some things, Sanfte supposed, were ineffable. The big wall was all part of God’s big plan, or what have you, and given that Sanfte had Fallen (rather a long way, at that…), it wasn’t really his problem anymore. Ineffability and all its trappings could quite comfortably pass him by.

In Sanfte’s arms coiled a snake that had slipped out through a crack in the wall, and been coaxed easily into his lap. Animals _loved_ Sanfte. They thought he was soft and warm and comfortable, and they liked to curl about his arms and the plush thighs of his vessel, or to slide up and sleep against his neck. Foolish things, really. They had no _idea_ what was holding them.

Animals—

Yes, _animals_ , he thought, they were a very good idea.

Even a wrong clock was right twice a day, he supposed – not that clocks had been invented yet, but you get the drift.

“ _Oy!”_ said a rather angry voice. Sanfte looked up, and beheld in his glory the archangel Raphael. The black hood of his robes had been thrown back, and about his head flamed a halo of fiery red hair, sparks flickering from some of the red curls and catching on the air. Sanfte had seen this business in Heaven, of course, albeit usually from quite the distance.

“Hello, dear,” Sanfte said mildly, with a little smile. His blue eyes were uncomfortably glittery, twinkling like they were full of stars, and Raphael was forced to suppress the instinct to look away from them. “Care to sit down?”

Raphael stared at him.

“What are you _doing_ here, fiend?” Raphael demanded, trying to make his voice seem big and loud and commanding, the way Michael seemed to do it. It didn’t much work – or if it did, it didn’t work on _this_ demon.

“Enjoying the warm weather,” Sanfte said pleasantly. “Don’t you think it’s a lovely day?”

“All the days have been nice so far,” Raphael said, and he glanced down to the snake in Sanfte’s arms, coiling about his arms and hissing softly. It had laid its chin upon the soft, warm flesh of Sanfte’s wrist, and was dozing with its yellow eyes open. Its scales looked beautiful, shining in the light, and Raphael reached out to touch—

But the snake hissed and pulled away, curling more tightly about Sanfte’s arm and hiding in his armpit.

“Oh, no,” Sanfte said, and the sympathy sounded real, but it was bordered with an agonisingly cutting edge, like real honey with razorblades in. “Don’t animals _like_ you, Raphael?”

“It’s the hair,” Raphael muttered, withdrawing his hand and sliding it into his other hand’s sleeve, his lips pressing tightly together. It was actually… It was rather endearing, Sanfte thought. _Sweet_ , it was. Sweet little angel… But then, not _that_ little. Raphael had a good foot on Sanfte’s height. “They think I’ll burn them. Anyway, you shouldn’t be here, demon. Get thee hence.”

“But hence to whence, dearest?”

There was a lovely bit of colour in Raphael’s cheeks, now, burning them almost to match his hair. “I don’t care! Just… _go_.”

A pause spanned between them, and Sanfte watched Raphael for a long moment. “Rather impotent, that, wasn’t it?”

Glancing back in the direction of Daniel, Raphael hesitated a moment, and then he reached in, and grabbed Sanfte by the white-robed arm. Reality shifted around them with a sudden _pop_ , and Sanfte released a giggle. They were away from the gate, now, and away, too, from Eden: they were out in the midst of the desert, where angels didn’t even patrol.

“Oh, you beastly thing of virtue,” Sanfte chimed, soothing the serpent in his arms. “That tickled most dreadfully. Won’t you do it again?”

“Look,” Raphael said, kneeling in the sands before him, and Sanfte raised his eyebrows. “Doesn’t it— doesn’t it seem _weird_ to you?”

“Weird?” Sanfte repeated. “Being taken out to the middle of the desert by a handsome archangel? Rather. Why, how weird would you like us to get?”

“What? No, no, I just mean… The wall. The wall, doesn’t it seem— Well, a beautiful garden like that, it’s meant to _grow_ , to expand, and there’s— There’s a big wall about it.”

Sanfte raised his head slightly, looking at Raphael thoughtfully, and he tilted his head. “Well… Yes, I did think it was a _little_ odd. But you know, it’s… It’s ineffable.”

“Ineffable?” Raphael repeated, leaning in closer. His hair flamed, and Sanfte wondered what it would be like to run his fingers through it. Would it burn him? Was it holy fire, the holiest of holies?

“You know,” Sanfte said. “ _Ineffable_ , my dear boy: inexpressible, unutterable, _inconceivable_. The Divine Plan. Hardly for the likes of _me_ to know the reasons why. I’m a demon. I just do what feels _good_.”

Raphael blinked. “Is that— Is that why you’re here? Because it _feels_ good?”

Sanfte smiled. “Of course,” he lied sweetly. “Don’t you like the sun on your face?”

“Er, well,” Raphael said, leaning back on his heels, and glancing up toward the sky. Sanfte watched as his fingers reached up to brush his face, his knuckles touching over a dreadfully handsome cheek, up to a cheekbone so sharp one could nearly cut oneself on it. “I— I suppose it does feel nice. Yes. No!”

“No?”

“You _tempter!”_

“ _Me_?” Sanfte asked, with injected innocence.

Raphael exhaled hard, and he stood to his feet, putting his hands on his hips. “I just— I’m just _worried_ , that’s all. I’m just worried that it’s… That something’s going to go wrong.”

“Oh, you dear thing,” Sanfte said, reaching out and gently patting Raphael’s bare, beautifully brown calf where his robe bared the skin. Raphael shivered. “Why, nothing’s going to go wrong.”

“Right,” Raphael said, swallowing. “Right, yes. You’re right. And I don’t need your comfort, demon!”

“No, dear, of course not.”

“ _Right_ ,” Raphael said. “Right.”

And he put them back.

\--

Such a dreadful palaver, Sanfte mused as he watched Adam and Eve rush over the sands, out into the desert proper. His serpent had slinked, most obediently – as a personal favour to a friend, you understand – back in through the crack in the wall, and had passed on a message to poor Eve.

The girl was—

Not that Sanfte felt _guilty_.

He didn’t know that he ought feel guilty, really, being a demon. But he didn’t much like the sight of her, shivering in the cold, and her belly already had a swell to it, already pregnant. She was struggling to keep up with Adam.

And that small angel – _Daniel_ , Raphael had called her – had rushed off—

And forgotten her sword.

 _Bless_.

Such little things as get forgotten…

Sanfte leaned down, holding it by its golden hilt between thumb and forefinger. It didn’t half sting, and he let out a little hiss of noise as he held it at arm’s length, but then flickered across the sands[1]. “Hello?” he called out, and the pair looked to him. “You poor things, it’s going to get dashed cold, you know, when the sun finishes going down. Here, have this.”

Adam took the sword in hand, and wielded it high: flames lit their three faces, and for just a moment, Eve saw the Sanfte _beneath_ , and gasped, tugging Adam back slightly.

“Do keep warm,” Sanfte murmured softly, and took his leave.

That was probably rather a nice thing to do, he thought, nicer than a demon _ought_ , but then, he was a demon, and demons, he felt, could do whatever they liked. If it brought him _pleasure_ to be nice, then he ought be nice – there was a little hedonism.

Oh, and _look_.

“Cooey,” Sanfte said as he took lazy step back toward the Gate. “Lost something?”

“My sword!” Daniel said fitfully, digging through the sands. “I’ve lost it, oh, my sword, my sword—”

“Goodness,” Sanfte said, with amused disapproval. “You’ll forget your own head, next.”

 

[1] Sanfte hated to run. He made a point of avoiding the awful practice.

**Author's Note:**

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